The mental processes of recognizing and identifying the objects of the five senses and the mind. Third of the five aggregates.

The term saṃjñā is used in an ordinary sense in Sanskrit to mean “notion,” “sign,” “conception,” or “clear understanding.” It is also used more specifically in Buddhist scholastic contexts for “the aggregate of perceptions” (saṃjñāskandha). In this presentation, as the third of the five aggregates, it refers to the mental function of differentiating and identifying objects according to their qualities. Thus it does not refer to the perceptions of the senses but to the conceptual notions or labels that are ascribed to sense perceptions before they may be conceived by the rational mind. In this sense, they are not really concepts or thoughts either, but rather the fundamental units ascribed to phenomena by the dualistic mind in order to form conceptual thoughts about them.

The third of the five aggregates.

The third of the five aggregates that comprise a living being (form, feeling, perception, formation, and consciousness).

The third of the five aggregates.

One of the five aggregates.

The third of the five aggregates, it is the mental process of recognizing and identifying the objects of the five senses and the mind.

One of the five aggregates.

The third of the five aggregates.

The third of the five aggregates.

The mental processes of recognizing and identifying the objects of the five senses and the mind. Third of the five aggregates.

The third of the five aggregates that constitute a living being (form, feeling, perception, formation, and consciousness).

One of the five aggregates, sometimes also called “recognition” or “discrimination,” this refers to the discriminative power of the mind in relation to objects.

The third of the five aggregates. The mental processes of recognizing and identifying the objects of the five senses and the mind.

Has the sense of notions involving nominal designation, the imputation of names to things.

The third of the five aggregates.

One of the five aggregates. It is also one of the five mental omnipresent (sarvatraga, kun ’gro) mental factors that necessarily accompany any cognition.

Often this term is translated as “perception” or “discrimination” when it is included as the third of the five aggregates, in which case it refers to the mental function of differentiating and identifying objects according to their qualities. Thus it does not refer to the perceptions of the senses but to the conceptual notions or labels that are ascribed to sense perceptions before they may be conceived by the rational mind. In this sense, they are not really concepts or thoughts either, but rather the fundamental units ascribed to phenomena by the dualistic mind in order to form conceptual thoughts about them. Thus we have translated this as a “notion,” as the verses of the Bhava­saṅkrānti­sūtra emphasize the insubstantiality of the names as mere notions ascribed to phenomena, which exist as nothing other than a designation imputed by the mind.

The term is used in an ordinary sense in Sanskrit to mean “notion,” “sign,” “conception,” or “clear understanding.” It is also used more specifically in Buddhist scholastic contexts in the phrase “the aggregate of perceptions” (saṃjñāskandha).

The mental process of identifying various perceived phenomena. One of the five skandhas.

See “aggregate.”

Third of the five aggregates. It is perceptions that recognize and identify forms and objects, differentiating and designating them.

Perception, the third of the five skandhas.